Ex-Friendswood dentist ran over her cheating spouse with her car

By Mike Glenn |
April 12, 2013
| Updated: April 12, 2013 9:45pm

Before shattering her life, Clara Harris was a successful dentist, raising two young sons with her husband, David, also a dentist.

Photo By Family photo

David Harris, 44, was killed in the parking lot of a Nassau Bay hotel after his wife found him with his mistress.

Photo By Smiley N. Pool/Chronicle

Lindsey Harris, shown with attorney John Davis, left, and her stepfather, James Shank, in 2003, was in the car with Harris when the dentist ran over the teenager's father.

Photo By Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

At her 2003 trial, Clara Harris demonstrates how she was driving her car when she first hit her husband.

Photo By Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

Clara Harris, flanked by her attorneys Emily Munoz and George Parnham, gets emotional after learning her fate in court in February 2004.

Photo By Carlos Antonio Rios/Chronicle

In 2007, Clara Harris, shown with attorney Dean Blumrosen, was ordered to pay her dead husband's parents, Gerald and Mildred Harris, $3.75 million in a wrongful-death suit.

Photo By Carlos Antonio Rios/Chronicle

Gerald and Mildred Harris, of Pearland, said they wanted the world to hear that their son David was a "good man."

Photo By CBS

The case inspired a TV movie, Suburban Madness, starring Sela Ward, left, as a private investigator; Elizabeth Pena, as Harris, and Brett Cullen, as David Harris.

Photo By Smiley N. Pool/Chronicle

In 2003, crews working for Harris' defense team videotape a black Mercedes in the parking lot of the Nassau Bay Hilton, where David Harris was killed.

Harris, shown in 2003, sued her attorney George Parnham, accusing him of overcharging her.

Photo By Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Harris could be out of prison in February.

Photo By Buster Dean/File

Harris at her trial in 2003.

Photo By Pat Sullivan/STF

Convicted killer Clara Harris looks toward her supporters after the end of testimony Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007 in Houston. Mildred Harris and her husband, Gerald, have filed a $5 million wrongful death lawsuit against Clara Harris in the July 2002 killing of orthodontist David Harris. Clara Harris ran over her husband with her Mercedes-Benz several times after confronting him and his mistress at a suburban Houston hotel. Harris was convicted of murder in February 2003 and sentenced to 20 years. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Clara Harris, the Friends­wood dentist who made national headlines a decade ago after she ran over her cheating husband, will spend at least another two years behind bars after her bid for early release was turned down Thursday.

"I was extremely disappointed when I heard she was denied parole," said Emily Detoto, Harris' former attorney and now close friend.

"The record indicates that the inmate committed one or more violent criminal acts indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety or property of others; or the instant offense of pattern of criminal activity has elements of brutality, violence or conscious selection of victim's vulnerability such that the inmate poses a continuing threat to public safety; or the records indicates use of a weapon," according to a release from the parole board.

"That sounds like boilerplate language," Detoto said.

She acknowledged the odds were stacked against Harris being paroled on her first attempt.

"But, we always remained hopeful," Detoto said.

Harris has served half of her 20-year sentence for the July 24, 2002, manslaughter of 44-year-old David Harris.

In 2002, Harris and her orthodontist husband were a successful couple with a string of dental offices when she became suspicious of his philandering.

Harris tracked her husband and his mistress to the Nassau Bay Hilton, where the attacked occurred.

David Harris' then-17-year-old daughter from another marriage was in the car when he was run over. She testified against her stepmother in her trial.

A private investigators hired by Clara Harris to investigate her husband was in the hotel parking lot and videotaped the crime.

The bizarre nature of the incident later spawned true-crime books and a made-for-television movie.

"Everybody's been praying that she would be granted parole but everybody understood what she was up against," Detoto said.

Harris is in the Mountain View Unit outside Gatesville in Central Texas. She has a job there converting school textbooks into braille for blind students.

"She's been a model prisoner," Detoto said.

Harris told the Chronicle in 2005 that she hoped to be paroled as soon as possible because of her twin sons, who were 3 when their father was killed.

Her sons are now living with family friends after a custody battle with their paternal grandparents. They visit her in prison about once a month.